Christmas news (and cute relatives)

Christmas is over! It came and went with alarming speed this year, didn't it? I hope everyone reading had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was pretty good. I was in Exeter staying with relations which was fun since we had big celebratory meals two evenings in a row and there were lots of little kids which always makes things fun, and it was generally very nice. One of my cousins has two kids, Bethany, aged four, and Otto, aged one. I don't know if it's because I am related to them and therefore biased or what, but these are the cutest kids ever! They are so unbelievably adorable! And just because I am an adoring cousin-once-removed, I'm going to post some pictures of them:

This is little Otto:














And this is Bethany, or Boofa as she is more commonly known (my family is Russian, and when you write Bethany in Russian it looks like the letters B, U, F and A. Hence, Bufa. Although they usually spell it Boofa. Oh yeah, my friends may remember the picture of her I had in my desk in Year 9, when she was only one, and this is her now!).











Aww! Anyway, moving on...

I now have the Wicked soundtrack (YAY!), which I am listening to right now ('Every moment... as long as you're mine...') and it is so good! Within about a week I'll know the entire CD off by heart. I also got Wicked: The Grimmerie, which is the amazing big book all about how Wicked came to be and how it was put together and such. I also got the Rent DVD, so now I can finally send the rented one back!

('No good deed goes unpunished/No act of charity goes unresented...')

That's all for now. Now I have to do three new reviews for Lights, Camera, Action (finally!).

Tallie xxx

('Was I really seeking good or just seeking attention?')

Recent travels and a bit of a singalong

This is the first time I've blogged while sitting in front of the TV. It's quite fun. I'm watching - guess what? - Rent. I told you, it's my new obsession. I'm still watching that rented copy (I've had it for about six weeks now!), but I'm getting the DVD for Christmas. And the soundtrack, hopefully.

I have been travelling rather a lot recently. I was in Amsterdam last weekend with my mum, visiting my brother and his girlfriend who live there. Amsterdam is a really nice place, very modern and organised, with excellent public transport. Everything that London should be! You pretend to believe her/'Cause in the end you can't leave her... sorry, just singing along. Anyway, while we were there we went to a show at Boom Chicago, a comedy club where my brother works. It was really amazing. Check out the website at www.boomchicago.nl, and if any of you are ever in Amsterdam, you have to go! OK???

This weekend (I wanna commit a crime/Be the cause of a fight/Wanna put on a tight skirt/And flirt with a stranger...) I was in London, where I saw Coram Boy at the National Theatre. Don't want to make you feel bad, Livvie and Claire, but it was absolutely incredible! The staging was so inventive and it was so powerful, with a choir and orchestra at the back of the stage performing bits of Handel's Messiah, which is featured in the story. My dad said it was one of the best things he's ever seen on stage. I'd love to go again.

On Sunday I switched parents and my mum and I went to Harrod's. Harrod's, the week before Christmas. Not such a good idea, but still fun. I love Harrod's, but it's impossible not to get lost there. Perhaps that's why I love it. On Monday we went to Oxford Street. Yes, I know, we went to the busiest shopping street in the whole country on the week before Christmas. Why don't we think about these things before going there??? Nice Christmas lights though. In the evening we went to see The Sound of Music, with Connie in!!! It was great, and I absolutely loved the set. Connie was wonderful, although she seemed like she was really anxious to prove herself and therefore overacted a bit, but she is still perfect for the part. You can't imagine (There's only now/There's only here/Give in to love/Or live in fear...) her playing any other part.

Now I am back and doing my best to feel Christmassy. My mum's jetting off to South Africa for Christmas, and for the first time since I was born, I'm not going with her. I don't really like Christmas there, it doesn't feel right because it's all hot and the middle of summer, but I'm still kind of jealous. (Let's open up a restaurant in Santa Fe/Sunny Santa Fe would be nice) I miss it when I'm not there, and I don't know when I'll be going again, due to this annoying thing called GCSE's. God, I hate them.

Hopefully I'll be seeing a lot of my friends and I do have a huge amount of films to watch to pass the time. Not to mention that Class Civ coursework.... oh crap.

(I think they meant it/When they said you can't buy love/Now I know you can rent it/A new lease you are, my love/On life)

Tallie xxx

Scrubs do Christmas, Snoopy style!

More about my recent news later. Any fans of Scubs have to check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Of_mna-Rs. The cast provide the voices for a Charlie Brown Christmas thingy, and it's hilarious, and also very sweet. I love the Dr Cox character!

Tallie xxx

Sweet Charity

The school play is over! It's so sad! I'm being quite ridiculous about it now, every time I hum one of the songs or see a prop used in it I get all sad. It was so much fun! Luckily nothing major went wrong in any of the performances. The last night was the most fun as everyone was in a celebratory mood. Before the show the drama teachers gave each group of people (cast, make-up, hair, lighting, stage crew, etc.) a big box of chocolates and me and Alice (co-stage manager) as well as the two main stars, a box each. Next, Dominique and Ellie, the Year 13s who are the two main stars, give each group another box of chocolates, as well as copious amounts of presents for all the teachers. After that, Alice and I head upstairs to the backstage area with our little stage crew team (made up of five Year 9s and 10s) and give them our presents to them - glittery baubles with their names on, and a big box of Chupa Chups. Meanwhile, Mrs Knights, the teacher in charge of backstage (although actually we order her around) has brought us yet another (the last of three) yard of chocolate fingers. Yes, a yard. OK, so you can imagine how many sweets and chocolates we had backstage. It was like a sweet factory. Everyone was so hyped up on sugar that night it's a wonder the show went on at all!

Everything went smoothly, with a wonderfully receptive audience, and then there were the speeches. The headteacher gave a boring speech about how well we'd all done, etc., etc and after that Dominique, Ellie and Phoebe (another key actor) thanked all the lighting, sound, costume, etc. people. They brought Alice and I up onto stage, which was very nice if slightly embarrassing, seeing as we were dressed head to toe in black and without all the heavy stage make-up everyone else was wearing. The teachers (after a lot of cheering, shouting and persuading) were called up onto the stage, even though they had expressly forbidden us to do that, and I got to hand them each a bunch of flowers. After that (yes, there's still more!) Alice presented Dom and Ellie with bouquets of flowers since it was their last school play. It was all very fun, happy and emotional, with huge amounts of applauding from everyone. After that it was a riot backstage, with everyone hugging everyone, and several people crying. Once all the cast had gone to get changed, the crew divided all the sweets up among themselves, and then the drama teachers came to give Alice and I bouquets of flowers, which was lovely of them and very unexpected. It was only when leaving the building several minutes later that I began to cry, and then I couldn't stop! It's strange, when thinking about it, it's only a school play and there are hundreds of thousands of them going on every year around the world, but when you're so deeply involved in it, it seems like the most important thing in the world, and certainly for the last few weeks before you go on it is your biggest priority, your schoolwork fading into unimportance.

Anyway, despite all the exceedingly long and tiring rehearsals and having no time to do anything, ever, and getting very stressed about it all, I think doing a play (or even better, a musical) is one of the best things you can do at school, or if you are like me, in life. It's so much hard work, but it's so worth it.

Talliestar xxx

(I had planned to talk about my subsequent trip to Amsterdam here, but I should do my Physics coursework now and you're probably all bored anyway, so I'll leave it until next time.)

More upsetting news

Firstly, I'm sorry I haven't been blogging much lately. Things have been crazy busy recently, the same goes for pretty much everyone around me, too.

Secondly, why are all my favourite celebrity couples breaking up? First Reese and Ryan and now.... wait for it... Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson! Nooooo! They are like the perfect couple! It's not 100% certain, but Rachel Bilson is rumoured to have fallen for The Last Kiss co-star Zach Braff. Now This could be worse - I mean the stars from two of my favourite shows getting together... but Adam and Rachel were so perfect for each other! Well, on screen they were anyway. I don't know what they're like in real life. But still.

My school play, Sweet Charity, is tomorrow. I don't know if I've already mentioned this, but I am a stage manager for it. It is incredibly stressful and a lot of hard work, plus you don't get the fun and glory of performing on stage. Not entirely sure if I'll do it again next year. But anyway, our first performance is tomorrow night and I'm just hoping and praying that it will all go OK. We had a pretty crappy dress rehearsal, but that usually means the irst night will go well, right? Right?

Oh, I almost forgot. I saw the musical Wicked in London last Saturday! It was absolutely amazing and I was so happy that we had Idina Menzel as the lead (can't remember how much I've said about Idina Menzel on here. I'll save my ramblings about her for another post). The sets and costumes and lighting and everything were incredible! I've never seen a production as visually stunning as this. I bought this sweatshirt - http://www.wickedmerch.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=HOOD-GREY and also the novel the musical is based on, which I can read over Christmas.

Having checked over all my posts for the mast few months, I realise I've hardly mentioned Wicked at all. Anyway, it (along with Rent of course) is my latest obsession. And I highly HIGHLY recommend you go here - www.wicked.lastminuteliving.com and read the wonderful Martin Ball's blog about Wicked. He is in it and has been writing about it from the very first rehearsal. There are also videos of people backstage and stuff, and one (the second most recent post) is a kind of trailer for the production. You should read everything, right from the start though, so go back and begin at the August posts. Not only are the posts very informative but they are hilarious. So go there. Now. I mean it. Go! WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?????

Tallie xxx